An Unlikely Team
by abyss1826
Summary: With everything he's heard about Haggar's replacement human, Thace doesn't find it too surprising when he finds them escaping and pointing a stolen weapon in his direction. Hoping to help he offers him a route to safety, but with the abandoned base he plans on using as a temporary hideout being a danger in itself, he's no longer sure how well he came through with that offer.
1. A Tense Beginning

A crashing boom reverberated through Central Command, the whole base shaking with the explosions. Matthew Holt was thrown into a tense wakefulness as the floor of his cell pitched hard to the right. He rolled to his feet quickly, careful not to trip himself over the shackle on his left ankle, and braced himself on the wall. He looked out of the large section of glass that allowed him a view of space.

"Well that's not something you wake up to every day," he muttered to himself, watching as Zarkon and some large cat resembling ship engaged in battle. The lights flickered as he surveyed what he could see of the damage the ship had done, wondering how good of an opportunity this would really be. He quickly braided his hair back so that it would be out of his eyes and out of his way, tying it at the end with an old scrap of cloth he tore off something back at the labor camp. The feeling of the braid going down nearly to his waist only reminded him of how long it'd been since the Kerberos mission was compromised. The lights flickered again and then died. He smiled. His prosthetic leg glowed to life, and he hoped his theory was true. He pulled against the restraint, the heat from his weapon of choice warping the metal and causing it to break.

"Holy shit alright." He wasn't expecting that to work. Not in the least. Whatever lines keeping prosthetic weapon countering magic flowing through that thing were apparently offline with all the damage to the ship. Who knew. "Well fuck now I need a _real_ plan." He didn't know how long it would take for them to get the power back on, he needed to act fast. He kicked through the door, carving a hole out of the no longer reinforced metal big enough for him to roll through. So far so good, but now what? Where was he going to go? The docks would have ships, and ships were the only way to leave since he couldn't just walk into space, but did he know how to get to the docks from where he was? No. Did he know how to fly? No. Was he going to die trying anyway? Yes and no. He didn't care if he died trying, however, he also knew he was too valuable to Haggar and her druids for any soldiers to risk doing him any real harm. Worse came to worse he'd get caught and sedated and wake up to find the Priestess herself pacing around his cell deciding his punishment. Nothing new. He was a troublemaker at heart, too much like his mother for his own good according to his dad. That's what he had said back at the labor camp at least, but Matt was the one who could fit in tight spaces and avoid security best of all of them. If anyone was going to steal them supplies for a revolt, it would've had to have been him. He knew the general direction down the hallway he needed to go to get closer to the dock since he could see ships coming and going from his window, and sped that direction. He didn't care if he came across any soldiers, animatronic or otherwise. He knew how to deal with them.

Eventually, he was spotted by a group of four that was running to respond to the damage done by the battle. They were either late or the first of a wave of many that Matt was going to have to deal with. He had tried to hide around a corner when he heard them, hoping that they wouldn't see him in the dark passageway with how quickly they were going, but he wasn't so fortunate. The first went down with a kick through the chest. Another kick sent the corpse flying into the second. The third was shot, courtesy of the first one's gun, after which Matt leaped onto the fourth one's shoulders with a calf wedged under the soldier's chin. He threw himself backward into a handspring, taking the galra down with him and into the floor. Armor can't guard from a broken neck.

Matt moved forward. No one he came across before he found vent access was prepared enough for him. He dropped down from the air ducts into the deserted hangar. They must have really called _everyone_ for disaster relief. He was glad he was slim enough to fit in ducts and avoid the larger crowds. He sped over to one of the smaller ships, something that looked agile and quick, maybe meant more for scouting if his guess was worth anything.

And then the hangar door hissed open. Matt spun around to face the man he recognized as one of the higher ranking officials who worked under Zarkon. He aimed the stolen weapon. The Galra official looked more surprised than like he was going to apprehend him.

"You're Haggar's new Champion, aren't you?" The door hissed closed.

"And you work under Prorok," Matt stated, holding the gun steady. Who knew holidays with the Callaghan side of the family would be preparing him for things like this? His grandparents would be proud of his marksmanship if horrified that he had to use it. But hey, it's not like they'll ever find out.

"Technically. At the moment I've just betrayed the empire so if you would please stop threatening to shoot me and allow my escape, I can take you with me."

"And why should I trust you?" Matt asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Can you fly a ship?"

There was a long pause of silence.

"No."

"Then I'm your only real way out of here kid, now lower that and let's get moving before anyone finds us, with Voltron and the Castle of Lions gone there aren't any more distractions." Matt cautiously lowered his weapon and Thace went passed and found a single pilot ship. "This should do fine, let's go." Matt looked at it. It was made for cargo. He got on and Thace was already starting to fire it up. He watched what buttons and switches on the control panel Thace used. He couldn't make out the symbols on anything from where he was standing (being human in a mining community of aliens that can see in the dark just fine screwed up his vision again, however, his old glasses wouldn't have lasted either way,) but he wasn't too keen on getting within reaching distance until they were well away from central command, so he stayed where he was.

The lack of resistance to their getting away was surprising, but Thace had essentially gunned it as soon as the engine was warm enough so anyone going after them was left in the dust before they had a chance to take off.

"Are you alright?" Thace asked, looking behind him at Matt, who just raised his eyebrows. "Silly question," the Galra sighed. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"I'm fine." His side had been clipped by a laser, and he was definitely going to have some nasty bruises soon, but nothing he couldn't deal with on his own. They were silent for a couple minutes while Thace put in what he could only assume were coordinates into the ship. Then he turned again, looking at Matt with a frown.

"You're bleeding."

"No I'm not."

"I can smell it."

"It's fine."

"Being injured does not connote fine."

"Well I am."

Thace sighed, pressed a button on the control panel, and stood up. Matt took a step back, which did not escape the Galra's attention.

"You need medical attention."

"I'll live without it."

"While that may be true I would rather not have someone reeking of blood luring every dangerous carnivore living in the place I plan to hide straight to us," he growled. Matt took another small step away from him and he regretted his choice of tone immediately. "Come on. The first aid should be this way." He walked down the hall to the other half of the ship. Matt followed at more of a distance than necessary. Thace got to a small kitchen like area where the rations were kept and opened a cabinet, taking a box down from a shelf. He glanced at Matt and patted the counter next to him before opening the box. When Matt didn't move he looked back at the boy again. "Sit." Matt hopped up and was reminded of when his mom would cut his hair this way when he was little. "Unzip so I can see the cut," Thace said, unwrapping what looked like gauze pads and reaching for an orange tub of something that wasn't marked in any way Matt could see. He unzipped the jumpsuit and pulled it down barely far enough for the wound to be visible. Then he crossed his arms over his chest, watching Thace carefully. The Galra opened the tub. What was in it smelled like basil and looked like something that would seep out of an infected cut. Matt wrinkled his nose. "This will disinfect it and help bond the skin back together quickly," Thace told him, and amused smile on his lips at the human's reaction. He cleaned around the cut with one cloth and then put on the cream. He covered it with the second cloth and taped around it so that it would stay on. "We're done here." Matt quickly shoved his arms back in the sleeves and pulled the zipper back up. "You should get some rest, bunks should be through there," Thace pointed at a doorway across from them. Matt hopped down without a word, and the Galra went back to the pilot's seat.

The room Thace had pointed him to had deep bunk beds built into the walls, six in total, but it looked like it was intended to fit twelve. He didn't question it. He wasn't naive enough to think he'd be able to sleep, but he sat in a bottom one regardless. Nestled in the corner with his knees hugged to his chest, he almost couldn't believe he had gotten out.


	2. A Layer Unwraps

They were closer to his destination, but it would still take a day or two until they could land. Thace stretched and put the ship on autopilot again so he could do something else. He was hungry, so he went to the ration storage and pulled out two gray tins from a cabinet. He knocked quietly on the door to the bunk before opening it. The human stared at him from where he had wedged himself in a corner, and Thace could see the circles under his eyes from where he was standing.

"You didn't sleep?" he assumed.

"No."

He nodded, offering one of the tins. "You should eat."

"Not hungry."

"That doesn't matter," he stated, holding out the tin until Matt eventually relented and took it from him. Then he sat down with his own in the other corner, feeling along for a small latch in the wall as the human watched. When he found it he flicked it open with a claw, revealing a small button, which he pressed. A mechanical hum came from the bunk above them as it moved further up. Then the middle panel of wall lowered between them until it was low enough to function as a table. The human pressed himself further into the corner, watching with wide eyes and an otherwise blank expression. It occurred to Thace that he probably should have warned him first.

"What the fuck…" he heard him mutter as the process finished. Thace went into a kneeling position and straightened up, no longer having to hunch over because of the top bunk.

"It's a table," he explained, putting his ration on it and moving closer.

"Yeah. Yeah, I noticed."

Thace folded up a tab on the tin and pulled it out, the sound of bubbling and some steam coming from the hole left behind. Then he pulled out a thin compartment from the bottom (which he should have done first since it was burning hot now) and pulled out a spork. He quickly put it on the table for it to cool and slid shut the compartment. Then he looked back up at the human.

"What?"

"You need to eat." There was a moment of stubborn silence before he scooted over, sliding out the spork and pulling the tab.

"What's in it?"

"Probably food."

He looked up at Thace, unimpressed with his answer. Thace just smiled innocently, not baring his teeth. He pulled the lid off of the tin to reveal a steaming brown substance Matt could only relate to stew. It smelled like spices and meat.

"So," Thace began as the human pried the lid off, "what's your name? Mine is Thace."

"People have been naming me a few things lately."

"Oh?"

"Well Champion, for one," he said bitterly. Thace grimaced.

"What's your… human name?"

"Matthew," he answered, poking around the tin with the spork to see what was floating around in it.

"Do you want me to call you that?"

Matt paused. "Sure."

They ate in silence, but Thace still watched him, curious to see if he would like what was in the ration or not. It wasn't too long before he saw a look very much like distress flash across the human's face.

"Is something wrong?"

Matthew hummed a weird upset noise before finally swallowing. Then he looked up at Thace.

"It's mushy."

Thace had no clue how to respond to that.

"And that's… bad?"

"It's horrible. It was like cooked celery it was gross," Matt elaborated, picking the offending turquoise cuts of stalk out of the stew and banishing them to the abandoned lid. "Raw celery is crunchy and great but once you cook it it's just disgusting it's mushy and just falls apart people who cook celery shouldn't be trusted."

"You seem to have very strong opinions on this human vegetable."

"I have very strong opinions on all vegetables. Generally, they're all better raw. Unless it's brussel sprouts or like… squash."

Thace nodded.

"I don't think we even can eat squash raw."

"Have you tried?"

"I don't like squash."

"Oh. What… what do you like?"

"Garlic."

Thace nodded again, trying to remember what garlic was.

"So what was that that was going on back there?" Matt asked, done picking out the icky stew bits.  
"At Central Command?"

"Yeah."

"The weapon Zarkon's been looking for, Voltron, has gotten pilots and is being led by two Alteans. Their planet was the first he conquered but somehow they must have been kept somewhere and came out triggered by the lions getting together." Matt stared at him.

"I'm going to need you to back up a bit."

"Voltron is a weapon meant to protect the universe. It was created by a race of people called Alteans during a war with the Galra home planet. Voltron is made up of five robotic lions powered by quintessence, who choose their pilots, or paladins, based on the compatibility they have in the similarity of quintessence. When the war was over part of the peace treaty was that other species also had to be pilots. Zarkon is the former black paladin, the leader of the five. When war broke out again because of… different moral standings, Alfor, the King of the Alteans split up and hid all of the lions so only one of them with strong connections to the lions could find them. Then they lost the war and Zarkon has spent the last 10,000 years taking over the known universe and looking for them."

"Yikes."

"And now they're all back. Princess Allura, Alfor's daughter, was captured. That's why they all went to rescue her. I had to take down the particle barrier locking the Castle of Lions in so they could escape. Then I had to get away. Now here we are."

"Are you part of some kind of shadow rebellion?"

"Yes actually. We shouldn't interact with Voltron's crew directly since bringing attention to ourselves would endanger others who are undercover like I had been, but them being around is useful and overall beneficial. Besides, Zarkon would have had all the lions at his disposal if I hadn't done what I did. It was a sacrifice that needed to be made."

"So you're going to get together with the rest of your people then?"

"Yes, after laying low where no one can track a signal."

"And you're just going to let me tag along?"

"Unless you have something better to do."

Matt pursed his lips. He did have something better to do. Unfinished business. But him going there was predictable, and with Athridir as his confidante, it was possible everything planned had taken place without him. He hoped that was the case, and stayed silent.

"Do you?" Thace prompted.

"No."

"Okay then. I'm sure you'll fit right in with the others once they get used to you." Matt nodded.

"So where is it you're planning on hiding?"

"The forest moon of Norn. It became a base when I was a child, but because of an element we don't have that the trees have absorbed from the ground signals always got interrupted trying to get through the canopy, and the wildlife is especially dangerous. Everything natural there being toxic, there weren't enough resources on the moon to warrant the difficulty of communication and people getting hurt so often, so Zarkon just got fed up and shut it down. He could have dealt with it easily but he was at war with another powerful planet at the time so his attention was a bit more… divided."

"And he never went back?"

"No."

"And he won't check it as a place you could have gone to?"

"There are other planets where it would be hard to track me, that are less dangerous. He would check them first. By the time he got around to this one we'll be gone."

"I'm pretty sure he has enough people to just send them all everywhere at once though."

"Yes, he does, but since I was in the higher ranks, and I was just a spy, he doesn't know who else there could be as well. He's going to be suspicious of everyone, and keep most of them close to make sure they don't do anything. That means he's going to limit who he sends out."

"And you're sure of that?"

"Sure enough."

Matt didn't like that answer, and Thace could tell by the look on his face, but not being able to suggest any alternatives Matt stayed quiet. Since the conversation had died down, Thace just observed him. There hadn't been many times where he was close enough to do so at Central Command, and Haggar had always had control of the scene then. He tried to avoid those moments. The human's hair was all a rusty brown except for a lock of white behind his left ear, an odd shape. His eyes were a darker shade of brown. Three thin scars marred his cheek on that side of the face as well, clearly claw marks. Thace recalled the deeper ones he had seen while bandaging the laser wound in his side. He wondered how old Matthew was by human standards, knowing exactly what had been done to cause such long dragging lines. The thought made him lose his appetite, but he finished what was left in his tin regardless, also taking Matthew's discarded vegetables.

"How long til we get there?" Matt asked, still eating.

"About a day or two."

"And no one's going to spot us heading towards that planet and tip off Zarkon?"

"No," Thace sighed, "There are no other bases in the area, and the route I'm taking doesn't intersect with the routes of any other ships right now."

"Are you sure?"

" _Yes,_ " Thace droned, exasperated.

" _Okay_ ," Matt said, mimicking Thace's tone. Thace again sighed and put his head in his hands, elbows on the table. Matt smirked, eyes glinting with mischief. When he finished his ration Thace took it and pressed the button to turn the bunk back to its bed formation. "Wait," he said completely serious before Thace could stand up. "Wouldn't they have tickets for each of their ships?"

"I disabled it after patching you up."

"Would they be able to override that?"

"Tirique coded a virus to destroy any empire tracking device, back when we were able to be a bit more upfront about disrupting trade and shipments. They won't find us."

"Who's Tirique?"

"My sister."

"Older or younger?"

"Younger." Matt nodded. "Do you have siblings?" Thace asked eventually.

"Younger sister."

"What's her name?"

"Katherine, Katie for short." Thace thought for a moment, looking at the sad look on Matt's face.

"I could take you back to Earth if you'd like." Matt looked up at him surprised before falling back into a colder, neutral expression that made Thace uncomfortable.

"No. Thanks, but no." Now it was Thace's turn to look surprised.

"Why not? Don't you want to go home?"

"Of course I want to go home," his tone was bitter, "But they probably all think I'm dead, and the people who put me in space will want to cover things up by making sure it stays that way, so it'd never be the same. Besides, Zarkon's going to go after earth eventually, I can't just stay there waiting for that to happen! Keeping him away from my planet, even when everyone there that I care about thinks I'm dead, is worth it. I'm not going back." The sureness and determination on Matt's face upset the man. He looked too young to have to make such drastic decisions, but he also had an air of stubbornness about him. Thace didn't argue.

* * *

So this fic is actually already complete, so it really depends on you readers how quickly it updates. Characters will be added to the list as they appear :).


	3. Found, Unexpectedly

Katherine Callaghan Holt was stuck in what she assumed was the space equivalent of the Great Pacific garbage patch, and god damn was she bored. At first she had stayed in the cockpit. Green had powered down, going into a sleep mode to do some internal repairs after crashing through so many layers of junk, so Katie was indeed completely and utterly alone. It was weird. She thought she'd like finally getting some peace and quiet, but after a couple of hours it just became unnerving. She was used to the quiet noises of the castle, creaking and buzzing of the inner works, bangs of metal contracting and expanding with temperature changes like the old metal radiators at her grandparent's farm in Indiana. She was used to the sound of Hunk working quietly next to her, or rambling a story about how he had taken something or other apart when he was younger. She was used to hearing Lance singing in the other room, or the sounds of Keith and Shiro using the training deck. She was used to casually explaining her ideas and projects to her lion while in the hangar, listening to her questions and advice when things didn't work out quite as intended.

But none of that was there now. There were only clunks and scrapes of the wreckage outside bumping into itself. Her mom would probably comment that she should feel right at home in all the clutter with the way her room always looks. Katie couldn't help but smile at the thought. She looked out into space. Green was now slightly awake, still powered down but also semi-conscious after nearly being hit by a large chunk of scrap metal.

"I'm gonna go out," Katie announced, putting on her helmet and activating the glass so she could go into space. "I can probably scavenge some cool things to use when we get back to the castle." Green sent her a vague sense of safety. "Yeah yeah I'll be careful, don't get hit by anything while I'm gone." Then she was floating in space.

Scaling the mounds of space trash (which seemed more like wreckages from old ships, what kind of battle had happened here?) was a lot like climbing a big floating jungle gym. She was careful not to dislodge anything when pushing off to a new area, looking for pieces she could fit together, maybe things that weren't damaged beyond repair. Something in the corner of her eye shifted, a chunk of debris dislodging and leaving a gap. She looked over her shoulder and screamed. An alien, covered in icy black fur reached out for her, blankly staring with white eyes and a blood covered face. It was dead, frozen in the vacuum of space. She didn't want to explore anymore. She turned to go back the way she came, but with everything floating and changing the way the place looked she wasn't sure where she had come from. She rocketed herself in the direction she thought she had come from, but it didn't look familiar anymore. At some point she had crawled through something. Nothing where she was now looked like she could have done that. She tried to feel her way back to her lion, only to be faced with the hull of a crushed ship with no safe way through. She flew up, dodging pipes and other sharp bits of metal and scraps, trying to go over it all.

She shouldn't have left.

Then she heard an engine above her, and looking through, saw a large Galra ship smaller than something meant for battle, but clearly Galra in design. She cursed. It was just outside the first ring of trash. Someone, or something, dropped out of a side hatch. It was going to land above her. She scrambled down and turned off her jetpack so it wouldn't hear her. It was about nine feet tall, solidly built and barrel chested. She saw a glimpse of it's face, five eyes like dots on a die gleamed above a round nose and long slash of a mouth. It wasn't a galra, and it wore nothing but boots and a black jumpsuit. The same thing prisoners wore. It turned it's head, surveying the planet of trash as it drifted down. She saw long bat-like ears on the sides of its head. Then it looked down, right at her. She scrambled away from the gap she was looking through, and it pulled itself toward where she was, breaking through the layer of debris into the pocket of space she was in. She almost turned her jetpack back on to hightail it out of there, but then it surprised her.

"Matt?" The voice was rough, like her grandfather's, with an odd almost buzzing tone underneath, but the word, or name rather, rang loud and clear. It shocked her still, staring at the alien with wide eyes as it got closer. Then it scowled. "You are not Fearless," it stated, taking on an accusatory tone, "Why do you look like him?"

"Uh…" She didn't know what to say to that.

"You're a human, what are you doing in these parts of the galaxy?" it demanded, "Why do you look like him?"

"You know my family?" she blurted out. Now it was the alien's turn to be shocked. It looked closer at her, looming. Her back drifted into the hull of the ship.

"So you are a human?"

"Y-yeah?" She noticed the alien wasn't breathing, only exhaling to speak. It grabbed her arm, and it one swift moment, pushed off the hull with its powerful legs and launched them back towards the ship it had come from. She yelled and grabbed for her bayard but when he saw that she had a weapon he just threw her ahead of him, sending her spinning in the direction of the ship. The airlock opened and she tumbled inside with the alien behind her after banging her knees on the ledge. The airlock closed, and gravity was turned on. She landed on the metal floor with a sharp thud. The alien landed on it's feet and opened the lock to the rest of the ship. A short rodent-like one stood outside.

"Back so soon?"

"Is Scholar in the cargo bay again?" the large one asked, picking Katie up and tossing her over his shoulder like a sack of flour. The jolt knocked the bayard out of her hand, and it clattered to the floor. The rodent-like one nodded, and he moved on. Behind him Katie saw the other pick up her weapon and scutter behind them, not being able to keep up very well with legs that were so much shorter.

"Who are you? Where are you taking me?" she demanded, trying to shove herself away from him by bracing her hands against the alien's back. He nearly squeezed the air out of her to keep her from budging. "How do you know my brother's name?" she continued, and they entered a large room filled with boxes.

"Hunter?" a familiar voice asked, stopping her from continuing her questions, shocking her into silence. "I thought you were going to look for parts, did something happen?"

"Found someone," Hunter grunted, rolling Katie off his shoulder and putting her on the floor in front of him, in front of her father, sitting on a crate surrounded by bits of machinery, looking more shocked than she had ever seen him in her life.


	4. Sister Courage

She pulled off her helmet.

"Katie?" her dad asked in disbelief, and tears started to well up in her eyes. She sprung up from the floor and ran to him, flinging her arms around his shoulders. "How are you here?" he asked holding her tight, like if he didn't she'd disappear.

"It's a long story," she whispered, burying her face in his neck to hide the fact that she was crying. Other alien members of the crew gathered in a curious circle around the reunion, whispering to each other.

"Well, we have time and an audience," he joked. Then she looked up. She almost didn't want to ask.

"Where's Matt?"

The room went dead silent.

"The witch needed a new plaything," Hunter growled. The aliens closest to him stepped away. "They took him back to the gladiator ring before our revolt." Katie let go of her dad and turned to look at him, horrified.

"But he doesn't know how to fight like Shiro does!"

Hunter began to laugh.

"Your brother is the cleverest, most determined, brutal creature I've ever had the blessings to train, Sister. He'll survive her tests sass and all, I assure you."

Katie looked at her dad. He nodded, a grim look on his face.

"What… what happened?" she asked.

"Well, you know your brother. Only following orders when the outcome suits him," her dad sighed, running a hand up his face and through his thinning snow white hair. "He has too much of your mother in him, both of you do really. Now what are you doing here?!"

The aliens in the circle, roughly thirty of them, pulled up crates to sit on, ready for storytime.

"It's a lot to explain…"

"Explain away, Sister," the rodent-like alien that was at the airlock, about a foot and a half shorter than her, prompted. She handed Katie her bayard. "Tell us of your journey."

She took a deep breath. "The Garrison's explanation was that you had all died in a crash. Pilot's error. They never told us, not mom, not Shiro's family, no one. We found out when the story aired on the news." She began, recounting the events from the night the news broke out to the collapsed wormhole. She explained everything, Voltron, Altea, the friends she had made, how Shiro didn't remember all that had happened to him. "Well, he might have started remembering more," she grimaced, "He might have only shared that because it had to do with Matt."

The aliens nodded when her story ended, moving into a circle of their own off to the side. They whispered in hushed voices as Katie looked at her father, hands clasped under his chin.

"Seems to me like you've been up to quite a bit, Kat," he said quietly. She went to hug him again.

"What do you think mom's doing?"

"Raising hell on Iverson with your aunt Christina I suppose," he mused, almost chuckling.

"Wonder what other kind of scandals she's found out."

"Probably all kinds of things. I'm surprised she didn't go with you when you snuck in the first time."

"She doesn't know I did that." He pulled away from her and gave her a serious look.

"You know Kat, that's probably why you got caught to begin with."

"Yes I'm aware," she groaned. "I didn't want to worry her when she had so much other stuff on her mind." Her father nodded, and she looked behind her at the semicircle of others. "What are they doing?"

"I believe they are deciding a name for you."

"I have a name though."

"A different one, one to be called by the group based off of what role you play or what trait they all see you to have. A community name was traditional in our camp. If you lived through the first couple weeks you got one. It also seems to distinguish people's relationships with a person too. Calling someone by their birth name instead of their given name shows a more personal connection. Don't call someone by their birth name, or don't call me Dad, when talking about me to someone else who doesn't use that name for them also, though. It's… Impolite from what I understand at least."

"Hunter called you Scholar?"

"Yes. Based off of the fact that I'm a scientist."

"Hunter called me Matt, though, and then… called him fearless when he realized I wasn't im?" Katie asked, frowning. Her father sighed.

"Yes, Matt has an… interesting relationship with Hunter," he said with the slightly disapproving look only a parent can make. "They named your brother Fearless for repeatedly sneaking around the camp and getting everyone food and supplies, even after getting caught several times. Hunter's planet was only recently taken over, and he's the only one of his race with us. He came from a family of warriors and was able to train Matt in an adapted version of his people's traditional style of fighting during the nights. That's why he has faith he'll survive the gladiator rings."

"Do you think he will too?"

"I'm not sure. Until you came I thought they had taken Matt away because Shirogane hadn't, and that's why they needed to replace him. But if he can get out, Matt may have already escaped by now. Who knows."

She looked back at Hunter and frowned, wondering if he had seemed bigger than he really was when he had first grabbed her.

"Did he get smaller?" She asked, just to be sure.

"Who, Hunter? Minor shapeshifting, he makes himself bigger to scare off possible threats and then smaller to… well to fit through the doorways for one thing but also so he doesn't run into anyone. The Mathyseis are quite little in comparison to even us, I'd hate to see Star get stepped on."

"Which one's Star?"

"The one who gave you the…?" He pointed to her bayard and she nodded in understanding.

By then the group was done discussing, and Katie turned to face them the same as her dad. Hunter stepped in front of her and placed his hands half on her shoulders. She heard the tips of sharp claws click against her armor.

"It has been decided. Your name amongst us will be Sister Courage, for your journey to this place in your life and how you have faced the challenges of the past. We welcome you to our rebellion." He smiled at her with gray, toothless gums. Now that he was close, Katie could see more detail in what he really looked like. His face was covered in small iridescent black scales that got thicker and formed three ridges across his head, each larger scale ending at a sharp point. Two started above his temple curving around his finely scaled ears, with one in the center. Three of his five eyes were closed, leaving the bottom two, positioned the same way they would be on a human, the only ones open. They were wide and blue, like a kitten's with slitted pupils and no visible whites. She wondered why the others were closed, and why he had no teeth with such a wide mouth. She smiled back.

The room buzzed with excitement. If her being Matt's sister wasn't proof enough, they knew from her stories that she would be a valuable member of the crew, even if it was only to be for a short time.


	5. Learning From Mistakes

Thace had gone back to the pilot's seat about three hours ago after telling Matt to try to get some sleep again. He hoped he'd manage to at some point. Thace wasn't sure how easy it would be to get into a base that had been abandoned nearly as long as he had been alive. They'd need to be alert and prepared to deal with whatever the forest threw at them.

Which meant he would be needing to go to sleep himself as well.

He yawned as he put in the command for the ship to do one last large radius scan for anyone else. When it detected nothing he put it on autopilot and quietly walked into the bunk room.

Matt seemed to be asleep, sitting up with his head resting on crossed arms and tucked in knees, back against the wall. Thace wondered why he slept like that, instead of the way humans regularly slept. He thought for a moment, considering that he had only ever really known one human. Perhaps Haneul was the one who slept weird. Or humans just had two different ways of sleeping based off of preference. Thace shrugged to himself. He went to the bunk on the opposite wall and stripped down to his under armor, putting everything else neatly on the top bunk for ease of access later. Then he curled up under the warm heavy blanket that made soldiers like him miss their pods just as much as it was supposed to replace them. It was going to be nice seeing Tirique again if she hadn't been put on some other assignment since the last time he had had contact with anyone. He wondered how their mother was doing, if Grandmother was still alive and could tell Voltron had come back. If he didn't know better he may have guessed she was back in the pilot's seat when the Red Lion attacked Zarkon on its own. She lived for the day the man who stole her planet from her, betrayed the universe, was brought down to his knees under her clan where he belonged.

Thace sighed as he drifted off to sleep. He had never been one for politics.

A metallic _thud_ woke him. He sat up, looking over at the human across the room. It looked like Matt had elbowed the wall in his sleep. He was about to lie back down when he realized that that wasn't the only noise that woke him up. Matt was crying. He hadn't expected that.

"Matthew?" He asked softly. The human didn't budge, clearly still sleeping. Thace got out of bed and padded over before sitting on the edge of the mattress. He put a hand on Matt's shoulder and shook him slightly. The next thing he knew he was flat on his back, staring at the ceiling with a pain in his ribs.

He saw Matt cautiously peek over the edge of the bed.

"You alright?" the human asked.

Thace sat up with a grunt. "I'll live. How are you doing?'

"'M fine."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about." Matt crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall.

Thace raised an eyebrow. "Experience says otherwise."

"Experience can kiss my ass," the human muttered, but Thace heard him all the same.

"You have a very strange way of speaking," the man commented.

"I have a very strange way of doing most things," Matt retorted.

"Even to other humans?"

"Most humans, yeah."

"Why is that?"

"None of your business."

Thace let the room be silent for a moment before he asked another question. "What's your planet like?"

"It's a big tilted rock filled with magma and mostly covered in water. We have a moon too."

"Tilted?"

"The axis that it turns on isn't straight, it's on a 23.5-degree tilt, but sometimes it can vary between 22 and 24.5 but only about every…. 40,000 years? Don't quote me on that it's been awhile since any of that was relevant."

"Oh." Thace frowned. "How does the tilt affect the planet?"

"We have seasons where it can be cold or warm and it's really neat."

"Interesting."

"But the poles are all frozen, almost nothing lives in those places. The entire arctic region goes half a year with only sun and half a year with only night because of the tilt, and the countries that go that far north can get almost no day at all during the winter, and almost no night in the summer. I'm from closer to the equator though so I've only ever read about these things."

"What is it like where you are from?" The complete shift in Matt's body language was surprising, leaning forward with his legs crossed, talking just as much with his hands as he was with his mouth.

"We have four seasons, the thing with Earth is that the closer to the equator you get the warmer it is because there's generally more sun and shit I'm not like, super close to the equator at all I'm actually closer north to the pole but anyway we have four seasons, in Winter everything kinda dies off because there's less sun, and the temperature averages below the freezing point of water so precipitation gives us snow and everything's white and there's no color. Except for some trees that have needles instead of leaves and are evergreens everything else is deciduous and sheds its leaves during fall which is the season before winter when things aren't quite below freezing but the temperature is still beginning to drop." Matt took a deep breath. "Anyway I'm going backwards with that, after winter things start to get warm again and all the plants regrow and trees get new leaves and sometimes they get flowers before they get leaves and it's all really pretty and smells great we also get a fuckton of rain then too so it's also very damp. Then we have summer and that can get really really hot sometimes it's actually dangerous to our health but we have technology that makes the air inside buildings cooler so that hopefully no one dies. Then after summer it starts to get chilly but not freezing chilly just a little bit cold, and that's fall. It just cycles through as earth goes around the sun."

Thace just sort of nodded, not having expected such a long explanation of that very specific topic of Earth's nature, and not entirely sure what to do with the information either, but glad that talking about it seemed to make Matt be in a better mood.

"Oh, one of the things that happen on earth that my friend Star found really wild was how we can get weather, with winds strong enough to destroy buildings and pick up people, and are completely and utterly devastating, but instead of just. Not living in the area where that's prone to happening we put holes in the ground under the places we live too if the wind levels or picks up the building nothing happens to us in the hole, and then we just rebuild when it's over. Unless you live by the ocean and it causes flooding then you just have to leave until the water goes down."

"Humans are indeed more resilient than expected," Thace commented.

"Good."

"Good?"

"Underestimation will be their downfall."

* * *

If you guys want me to upload chapter faster you can review~

The next one's gonna be a real kicker


	6. Some Unexpected Company

T Í̴ ͟M ́̀E̸͝ ̶ F̷̢ ̡O͏ ̕R̀̕ ̕͢͠ ͟͢ P͞͏ ̷̴̡L͠ ͘͜O ̸̀͢T́

* * *

"Are we close yet?" Matt was leaning on the back of the pilot's seat with his arms crossed. Thace could see his hair in his peripheral vision.

"Yes, we're close." he confirmed.

"Is that it?"

"Yes."

"It's very green."

"It's a forest Matthew."

"Are all forests green?"

"No, but it is a common color for them to be."

"What other colors are there?"

"Purple, almost black."

"And they photosynthesize?"

"They what?"

"Make plant food with energy from the sun." Thace looked back at him.

"I'm a soldier kid, not a scientist."

"Well technically I'm both and I Demand Answers." Thace sighed in the tired way only a parent can and turned his attention back to flying. Matt was quiet for a second. "So everything there is toxic?"

"Pretty much, yes."

"And you're sure we're gonna be able to get into this place?"

"Yes Matthew, I am _Sure_."

"So why are we hiding on Norn's moon instead of Norn itself?"

" _Because it's a barren wasteland full of ice and we didn't want to deal with it._ " Thace snapped.

"Ooo Hoth," Matt said quietly, unfazed.

They entered the moon's atmosphere and Thace flew above the treeline, looking for the roofline of the former base.

"What if it's completely overgrown and we can't stay there?" Matt asked.

"Will you _please_ stop suggesting things that make my life difficult?"

"So you don't have a plan B?"

" _Matthew I swear to-_ "

"-Fine I'll shut up whatever!" he exclaimed, pushing off the seat and going to the bunk room. If he could slam the door he probably would have. Thace rolled his eyes and went back to searching for the building. He found it and cursed. There was no way to get into the hangar. They would have to get in, break in, on foot. He landed in a clearing a short walk away and went to get Matt.

"Okay so we're going to have to-" the door opened and he saw the boy, standing on his hands, not facing him. "-Are you sulking?"

"No," Matt answered crossly, sulking. Thace just stared at him a moment before shaking his head.

"Alright well we have a little bit of walking to do, then I'll have to figure out how to override whatever security might still be active if there's power." Matt spun around on his palms to look at him, his hair every which way around his face in an almost comical display.

" _If_ there's power?"

"I'll be firing up the backup generators when we get in."

"You mean if we get in?"

"No, I mean _when_ , stop being so negative."

"Oh yeah because that's so easy," Matthew muttered, gracefully transitioning back to his feet. They left the ship. Matt stared up at the trees. Thace grabbed his shoulder and steered him away from tripping over a rock.

"Be careful."

"Yep."

"The base isn't too far from here. Be quiet and look out for anything threatening."

"Hypervigilance, my favorite symptom," Matt muttered, following.

"What?"

"Nothing."

They walked quietly for a couple of minutes. The sound almost made Matt uncomfortable. Too close to the noises of the woods on Earth but alien enough to make it just feel off. Then the calls in the trees and buzzes from what on Earth would be bugs stopped. The only sound was them.

"Something's wrong," Matt warned. Thace hushed him, listening, and they stopped walking.

A branch to their left cracked. Something lunged.

Matt, in one fluid movement, kicked Thace forward and launched himself back, his prosthetic leg crackling to life when he landed. Thace rolled to avoid just landing on his face, turning to see what was attacking them. It was big, green, and furry, with snarling teeth and sharp claws. Of all the things he had read about on the file for this base, it just had to be that. It lunged at Matt but Matt was faster and launched himself into a tree, leaving a scorched dent where the prosthetic made a foothold up to the branches. Thace yelled for him to be careful. Matt yelled for Thace to do something other than stand there and kicked the predator in the face when it tried to swipe at him. Thace shot at it with the blaster Matt had stolen from Central Command, drawing its attention. He wasn't so sure that that was the desired effect. While it was turned, and still effectively under him, Matt dropped onto its neck and latched on like a vine. Before it could do anything he plunged his fingers into its eye sockets, blinding it. It's bellowing cry echoed, and with a violent twist, Matt was thrown to the ground beneath. It swiped at him despite Thace's near frantic attempts to draw it's attention, picking him up and throwing him into a tree. Thace didn't see if he got up or not before the creature turned towards him. Blood the green of new wood ran like rivers from its wounds. Thace was sure that, with the damage Matt had dealt, the fight wouldn't be lasting much longer. He shot out its knees so it couldn't move, and then left it for dead. They needed to get out of there quickly before something bigger came to investigate the blood.

Matt was trying to stand, holding his side with one arm and bracing himself on the tree with the other. Thace caught him before he could keel over, swearing under his breath at the sight of the eight puncture wounds to the lower right of the human's spine.

"Is it that bad?" Matt asked, knowing full well from the fact that he felt like shit run over that it was absolutely that bad.

"You're poisoned now so _yes_ it is _that bad_."

"How?"

"Barbs that spring out underneath the claws when something catches. You caught, now we really need to get you to the base's medical bay they would an antidote on file."

"Why the hell is a bear that can throw me into a tree at 25 miles an hour also venomous that's just overkill," Matt stated as Thace carefully picked him up.

"Can you take this a little more seriously Matthew, you're dying."

"About fucking time."

Thace decided not to comment on that one, instead focusing on getting them to the base. When he got to an entrance he put Matt down against the wall and hotwired the card lock to get the door to unlatch. He pulled it open, and then carried Matt and ran through corridors until he found the medbay. By then the human had already passed out. He took the dusty sheet off of one of the cots and lay Matt down on his side before tearing through the cabinets like a disorganized cyclone looking for what he needed. He had the antidote ( a syringe filled with a thick rosy liquid from a box labeled with a drawing of the creature the antidote corresponded with,) a roll of bandages, disinfectant, a pair of medical gloves, and swab cloths. Thace cleans the blood off of Matt's hands from the human's startling but he had to admit, also effective, method of blinding the creature. Now that that was done he undid the jumpsuit down to Matt's waist, wondering if it would be worth it to try to find something in storage to replace it. He filed the thought away as something to bring up later when Matt was well enough to be out of bed. First he turned him onto his stomach. His back was discolored with dark bruises. Thace hoped nothing underneath was broken. He cleaned the area, injected the antidote, and cleaned out each puncture before wrapping it. Then he rezipped the jumpsuit, unsure if leaving it undone to make bandage changing easier would make Matt uncomfortable when he woke up. He didn't want to risk it.

Deciding that was all he could do he discarded what was left of the used medical supplies and left to check up on the base itself. He kicked on the old backup generators, even though he could see in the dark just fine, found the kitchen, and found a laundry room. To his surprise, there was still detergents and other things almost fully stocked. They hadn't taken the time to fully clear the place out before abandoning it. They must have wanted out especially quickly. Thace really couldn't blame them. He decided to do some laundry. Dust and grime couldn't be very healthy, and he was sure they would both feel better if the place was clean.

He turned on the water purifier and about half an hour later was sitting in front of about three washing machines, watching them spin. He had set up security, he had checked all of the entrances, made sure even the door they had come through locked properly. He got up with a sigh and wandered back in the direction of the medbay.

There was a thud and a swear.

He found a bewildered looking Matt sitting on the floor next to the cot, one arm on the mattress grabbing at the sheet.

"You alright?"

"Perfect," the human grunted, trying to stand. "I'm fine," he said when Thace tried to help him. "Just peachy."

"I don't know what that last thing means but it's a blatant lie and I demand that you lay down and rest."

"You're not the boss of me," Matt replied, leaning on the headboard.

"As an adult, I am absolutely the boss of you young man." He'd never seen the human look so offended. Matt dramatically put his other hand to his chest.

"I am _my own_ fucking adult thank you very much." Thace needed a moment to process that information.

"Lies. Now lay back down you need to rest." Matt sat on the bed with a huff, pretending that doing so didn't aggravate his injuries. Thace went through the cabinets again and found what he needed. He held up a small packet of powder. "So this is pain medication," he started, "But it's also supposed to make you sleep so that people just, well, sleep through the rest time they're supposed to have for whatever their injury is. So if you want to take it…."

"Sure," Matt said with a shrug. Thace got a small cup from a cabinet and filled it with water.

"How much do you weigh?"

"At this point, I have no idea." Thace decided to improvise by only putting half the powder in the glass. He handed it to Matt before leaving to check on the laundry again.

That was not good. It wasn't exactly terrible, but as far as Thace was concerned it wasn't good either. He had really hoped he would be able to avoid this whole thing and wait for his Mother to weigh the pros and cons and figure out the necessary diplomatic conduct. But no.

The Alteans were outside and investigating a way in.

He sat in front of the panel of security feed, hoping that they would just decide to go back to wherever they had landed the castle before dark.

The universe decided that things weren't going to happen like that.

The universe, in fact, decided to send one of the locals. Thace could hear the roar even from inside and quickly opened the door to avoid either of them getting hurt. Coran, the one he remembered had replaced his grandfather after Zarkon's betrayal, shouted something about it possibly being a trap. The Princess pulled him in by the arm after her anyway. Thace quickly shut the door behind them.

He sighed. Time to greet some unexpected guests.

He turned on the intercom and hoped that it wouldn't wake up Matthew.

"Good morning, I have no intention of hurting either of you, I think we may actually be of some help."

"How so?" Allura asked, suspicious.

"Well Princess, I don't know where you and the Blue Paladin have been all this time, but I believe the Clan name Zakaii will sound familiar." The two Alteans looked at each other in shock.

"Sahlrin?" Coran gasped.

"Or Phirra," Allura suggested, eyes wide.

"Phirra is my mother, yes. Now are either of you injured?"

"No, we're fine. Where are you?" Coran asked.

"Control room. I'll be with you in a minute, don't go anywhere."

"You're wearing the Empire's armor," Allura commented with a look as cold as steel when Thace came into view.

"Deep cover," he stated, "How else did you think the shield that kept you locked into Central Command went down?"

"We weren't sure. Who are you hiding here with?"

"One of the prisoners. He took advantage of the chaos the Red Paladin caused, we ran into each other. I took him with me."

"Must be an important prisoner to be held at Central Command," Coran commented.

"The Druids were studying him after their last human escaped." The Alteans looked at each other.

"Is… he human?"

"Yes?"

"What's his name?" Allura asked urgently.

"Matthew, why?" He was slightly bewildered by the fact that they knew of him.

"His sister Katie is looking for him."

"What?"

"Where is he is he alright?"

"He's sleeping off an injury right now but he'll be fine, how is his sister in space?"

"It's a long story, she's the Green Paladin. The Black Paladin is Shiro, the human who escaped. According to her, they had been quite close."

It occurred to Thace that Matthew may think Shiro to be dead.

"Oh."

"Now," Coran began, "If he's injured it may be best to bring him to the castle. Our healing pods should fix him up in a jiffy!" Thace considered it. It couldn't hurt to try. He doubted the Alteans would let him leave without them as well, and with Matt's connections to their crewmembers….

"I'm sure that would be fine," he said. "The medbay is this way."

"What is his injury?"

"We had an encounter with some local wildlife that ended with him bleeding and poisoned."

"That's awful!" Allura exclaimed.

"I'm almost positive the boy's had worse." They entered the room and the Alteans looked at the mop of hair poking out from a pile of pillows. Two cots were pushed together to more adequately accommodate them all.

"You nested him?" Coran asked, eyebrows raised.

"He's practically a child," Thace stated defensively.

"Are you sure there's a human under all of that?" Allura asked, smiling behind her hand.

"He isn't much younger than Shiro, and I know for certain that Shiro is an adult," Coran replied.

"He's Practically A Child," Thace repeated. Coran and Allura just looked at one another.

"Someone was on care-duty before going undercover," he whispered. Allura had to muffle a snort.

"There are several cubs in my extended family," Thace huffed, picking Matt up. "Now how far away is that ship of yours?"

* * *

It took three chapters but here we are, the plot train has left the station, hurtling into the abyss, toot toot motherfuckers time to find some Teens.


	7. What Makes A Family?

"Now what?" she asked. She had a name, now what was she supposed to do?

"I must go out again and look for supplies," Hunter stated, "That's what I was doing when I found you."

"Oh."

"You can stay down here with me," Sam said, and Star hopped up on the crate next to him. She reminded Katie of a Senegal bushbaby, tail and all, with shiny golden fur.

"I hope you're better with machines than Scholar here is," she said. She pronounced consonants very sharply.

"I'm not exactly the mechanic my wife is, that is for certain," Sam laughed. Katie smiled.

"I'm not sure anyone from our house is the mechanic she is," Katie commented. "What are you trying to do?"

"Take apart things Hunter finds to use the parts in other ways, or for trading," Star answered. "I'm not sure you hands will be of much use getting the smallest parts, they are too close to the size of Scholar's."

"Oh." She watched as the alien unraveled and separated wires, undid screws with her nails and took out data chips from the panel sitting in front of her. Katie wasn't sure even two of her fingers could get into where Stars hands were going. Her palm would probably get stuck first.. Star pushed a pile of screws, cords and other objects she was disconnecting over to Katie.

"Sort these," she said. Sam busied himself by taking the larger parts and breaking them up into sizes Star could work with.

"How did you and mom even meet, anyway?" Sam looked up at her.

"Why?"

"Well, aunt Jen said you were high school sweethearts at one point when I asked when you met but like… you didn't even live in the same state… and that farm's been in Grandma's family since before the civil war so how the hell did you date in high school."

"Honey the internet existed before we were even born it wasn't that difficult to keep in touch."

"Okay, but how did you actually meet? Like was it in person?"

"Yeah."

"So what happened?"

"Well, since Jennifer and I were going to have to start applying to colleges our parents decided to take a road trip to visit some of the out of city options we were interested in. Then, once we got to Indiana, our car broke down in the middle of nowhere because of some engine problem. The Callaghans were the only mechanics in town. Colleen and Christina were in the shop that day and took us all around town while their dad talked to our parents. Eventually, Jake and David just went back to the shop and played with their dog and Christina split off with Jen so Colleen and I just wandered around the woods for a bit. I made a Bridge To Terabithia joke when we got to the creek and I think she started crying."

"Wow. Aren't you just great with women."

"I was sixteen Katie. No sixteen-year-old boy is great around someone they think is cute."

She thought of Keith and snickered.

"What?"

"You just reminded me of something that happened between Keith and Lance."

"I thought you said they were rivals."

"According to Lance they are, but really that just adds to the drama."

"Oh boy."

"I know."

"At least he has Shiro again."

"Oh yeah. He got kicked out of the garrison and was apparently just. Living in a shack. In the middle of the desert with his conspiracies."

"That wild son of a gun really loved aliens."

"Dad no…"

"Dad yes." Just then Star cleared her throat. The two looked at her as she held up a computer chip.

"Look at this neat rock I found."

Katie stared at her in confusion. Sam Burst out laughing.

"What?"

"It's a joke Fearless started."

"Oh. Of course. What else would Matt be doing during his time in captivity but … learn to fight… and make memes…."

"It is what he's best at," Sam said eventually, once he had stopped laughing enough to do so. "It first started that he actually found a rock he thought was cool but that can only go so far. Eventually, it was expanded to things that are very obviously not rocks."

"Oh!"

"His other ones were a fair bit more concerning, however." Star stated.

"What do you mean?" her father grimaced, clearly not wanting to comment.

"Well, every so often he'd disappear and come back to the barracks in a nasty shape." The light-hearted mood in the room dropped below zero. Katie didn't want to know to what extent 'nasty shape' implied. "Sometimes we'd ask what happened. He'd just smile and say it was nothing, just 'Quality time with Commander Saztas', or Hexin, or Tzuril, depending. Hunter would patch him up with whatever we had on hand and he'd just keep smiling like nothing was wrong, trying to keep us from worrying." Star's voice cracked. "He knew we needed a strong leader to keep us together and refused to let us see anything but that, no matter the cost of his actions."

"Next on Not Being Able to Tell if Your Son is Suicidal or Just Joking as a Coping Mechanism: What to do when he Won't Talk About His Trauma Because He Doesn't Want to Worry You," Sam said monotonously, undoing panels on some kind of box to expose the wiring. Katie grimaced.

"Well… Shiro's kind of been like that too, it's probably just how they're dealing with things."

"It better be. How's the rest of your crew doing?"

"I'm not sure that Keith's all that upset about leaving Earth since he doesn't really have anyone there to miss, but he's kind of hard to read him sometimes so I'm not sure I'd really know," she sighed. "It's hitting Lance pretty hard, Hunk too but since the Balmera incident he's been a bit more driven to defeating Zarkon, he talks to Coran about it mostly. They're pretty close."

"Coran and Lance?"

"Yeah."

"And what about you?"

"Uh… I'm good." He slowly looked up at her from his box with a blank expression.

"Katherine I know you and Matt are alike to the degree only siblings can be but if you put me through what he did again I will actually cry."

"Well-!" she backpedaled at light speed- "I wanted to somehow get into space through the Garrison so I could abandon whatever mission and find you guys and bring you back to Earth so really this whole Paladin thing just enabled me!" He raised his eyebrows at her.

"Great."

"What?"

"Well the Garrison told the general populous we were dead, and then clearly, from your description of what happened, were going to lock up Takashi, so I really don't think we'd be able to go back to Earth anymore. Even if we kept a low profile and stayed under the radar they would just hunt us down. They investigate everything that doesn't burn up in the atmosphere with almost paranoid vigilance there's not a way around that."

"How do you know?" she asked stubbornly, crossing her arms.

"Well that's quite a bit of a 'because' so I hope you're ready for storytime." Star sat up straighter in anticipation. The humans' stories of their planet were always entertaining. Katie nodded, and he began. "Back about three years before you were born, there was a guy I worked with named Haneul Gyeong. We weren't exactly close, but we had some lab hours together so I knew him well enough. One night during the summer something crashed around the cliffs in the desert. Reports were that they couldn't find anything. No meteor, no aircraft, nothing. I knew by accident that he lived off grid around there from walking in on him talking to himself complaining about sandstorms, so the next day when we were the only one's in the labs I asked if he had found the aliens from the previous night. Looked like I gave him a heart attack before he realized I was joking. All I know was that Iverson was assigned to the case, and about a week later Haneul went missing. Don't know what happened to him, but it was pretty much cold until a year later. Overheard things about them finally catching someone, and Iverson was promoted. Figure they probably caught up with Haneul. When I tried to read the files on it out of curiosity they were encrypted to hell and back, so I'm not entirely sure. Just one of several shady operations they had going on."

"Did what crashed ever leave?"

"Yes, actually, it did. About a month before I heard they caught someone."

"Huh. And you're sure they landed by the cliffs?"

"Yes."

"That's where the blue lion was hidden."

"Interesting."

"And they didn't just take it either, so it couldn't have been anyone sent by Zarkon."

"Perhaps a friend of your Alteans wanted to make sure the lion was still there," Star suggested.

"But who could that be, though, no one's come to us, if there was an ally of theirs still out there they would have tried to approach us by now don't you think?"

"That's a possibility, but they may need to lay lower than that. From what you've told us it doesn't seem like your castle is very discreet."

"Who knows what their tactics against Zarkon could be," Sam added.

"I guess," Katie sighed. "Probably won't be hard to find us if they want to."

"So are you going to go back to your lion?" Star asked, standing on the countertop while Katie sorted through what they had in the cabinets and taking stock.

"Eventually, yeah. Gotta tell her what's going on."

"But you found your father." She said, marking down how many tubs of antiseptic they had on some kind of tablet.

"I'm still a Paladin of Voltron, family or not Star."

"Will they stay with you? Scholar and Fearless when we find him?" Katie laughed nervously.

"Well, I'm sure there's room on the castle for 12 more people."

"All of us?"

"I don't see why not." Star nodded silently. "Do you think people wouldn't want that?"

"If Fearless stays with you, I'm sure some will stay as well."

"Would you stay?"

"I have nowhere to go. I am a fugitive of my planet, many of us are, my house would be put to death by the Empire if they were to hide me."

"Oh."

"I know Hunter will stay with him," she said with a sly grin. Katie raised her eyebrows.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He gave Hunter hope and someone to care about."

"Care about how much?" Katie chuckled softly. Star smiled.

"You can ask him yourself if you're really that curious."

"Oh, I'd rather not. I'll just tease Matt about it when we find him." That made Star laugh, a squeaky chittering sound.

"I'll have to be there for that."

"I'll make sure to do it when you're in the room."

When Katie was done taking stock with Star she went back to the cargo bay, expecting only her father to be there, but Hunter was with him. They stood at an improvised desk in a corner, talking. Katie ducked behind a stack of boxes to listen. Neither of them seemed to notice her.

"You don't _need_ to keep these for him!" she heard her dad exclaim.

"It was _his_ kill Scholar, not mine. I only did what I did because he wasn't there to do it himself."

"What if he wouldn't have? What if they never had taken him and he decided not to kill any of them?"

"After everything they did to him?!" Hunter exclaimed. "I understand your dislike for this but it's Matt's justice, and they deserved far more suffering than I gave them in return for his pain."

"And you're qualified to be handing out his 'justice'?" She'd never heard Sam take that tone of voice before.

"I'm clearly more willing to go to the lengths to do it than you are," Hunter snarled. Sam turned on his heel and stomped off, still fuming, but not wanting to extend a pointless argument. Katie came out from behind the box when he was gone, and Hunter had started working on whatever was on the desk. He glanced at her, but neither of them spoke. She watched what he was working on. They looked like gauntlets, covering the front and back of the hand, and the backs of the fingers, each finger ending in a sharp point extending past the nail. The knuckles weren't covered, making them flexible in his hands. She watched as he attached a latch to the palm cover to clasp it shut and adjust it. He looked at her for a moment again.

"Give me your hand."

"What?"

"I need to adjust it."

She held her hand out to him and he slipped her fingers into the metal sections, closing the armor around her palm and the lower section around her wrist.

"How is your range of motion?" She bent her fingers, clenched her fist as tight as the claws would allow, tested the movement in her wrist.

"I don't know how flexible you want to make this, but my thumb can't really touch my other fingers." Hunter nodded.

"The palm folds in to allow that yes?"

"In a way?" she showed him her other hand, and what it looked like when she brought her thumb to her pinky.

"I need to make the palm plate follow that motion," he muttered, taking the gauntlet off of her hand.

"How are you going to do that?"

"Not sure. Hinges wouldn't work if they went out, and if they folded in it would pinch your skin. Is no cover over the knuckles good?"

"It's fine. What are you making these for anyway?"

"Having claws would help Matt better than a traditional weapon with the way he fights, holding something would limit his movement."

"Oh." He set them down next to three silver rectangles she only noticed then. They were engraved with Galra'n letters. "What are those?" She asked.

"Name badges."

"For who?"

"The commanders who were in charge of our labor camp."

It was then that Katie understood what he and her dad had been arguing about.


	8. First Impression Is Disaster

Good news: Matthew did not spend long in the pod.

Bad news: Allura was the one to catch him.

In hindsight, Thace supposed he really should have seen this coming. The moment Matt dropped and kicked her feet out from under her he knew he had made a mistake. Allura trying to grab his arm and Coran's yelling did no one any favors and as far as rolling went Matthew was the fastest most agile little ball anyone could be. When he sprang up to run Thace managed to wrap his arms around him from behind.

"Matthew it's Thace your safe here it's fine calm down," he said. Matt, not processing any of that as words, bit down as hard as he could on Thace's arm and slammed his metal heel into the Galra's knee. Thace swore and let go. By the time he looked up again the human was gone.

"Well that's not how I envisioned meeting Pidge's brother to go," Coran stated. There was a metallic clang in the hallway branching to the left and Thace ran towards it. Matt wasn't there. The only sign that he had been there previously was the vent grate on the floor and two black scuffed dents in the wall from him somehow managing to get up there. Thace cursed under his breath.

"Matthew come back!" He yelled at the vent.

"I don't think that's going to work," Allura said behind him. He turned to her with an irritated huff and saw that she was holding roll of bandages and a tub of salve. He looked down at his stinging arm with slight surprise to see that it was bleeding rather steadily.

"I guess I shouldn't have changed out of my armor," he said, rolling up the sleeve of the white shirt they had given him.

"I wasn't aware that human jaws were so strong."

"I wasn't aware that he'd bite me," he chuckled.

"Well what are we going to do now? He think's we're a threat and didn't even seem to notice you!" Coran exclaimed as Thace dressed his wound.

"I'm sure he'll calm down eventually, or at least leave the vents long enough at some point for us to find him."

"And why the vents?!"

"Hidden high ground with limited access and points that need to be defended, as well as them being a way to get through to anywhere in the ship. It's a decent strategy."

"He's going to get lost," Allura muttered.

"Probably," Thace sighed in agreement.

"He's going to die in the fan blades," Coran stated.

"I think he knows better than to do that."

"Well now what then?"

"We should probably wait until he shows himself. I'm sure he'll recognize me eventually."

"We can check the video feeds on the ship to keep an eye on if he comes out!" Allura suggested. "The mice could also help in that respect."

"Whatever you can do, do it, I don't care as long as he gets what's going on soon."

Allura nodded, and the mice ran off. They ran back to her while the three of them were walking to the bridge, squeaking loudly. She quickly changed directions.

"They say he came out of the vents, we need to get to him before he goes back." They followed the mice quietly so that Matt wouldn't hear them coming and flee again, ending up in a hallway near the sleeping quarters. She turned a corner too sharply and ended up running straight into him. Before he could bolt she pinned his arms behind his back and held him against the wall.

"We're trying to help you!" she exclaimed when he stomped on her foot.

"Matthew please calm down!" Thace pleaded. That got Matt to finally look at him, eyes rimmed with red, wide and afraid.

"Thace what the hell?!" Matt nearly squeaked, and Allura let go of him hoping he wouldn't run away now that he recognized his friend. Her hope held true, but for the three steps he took away from everyone.

"These are the Alteans I told you about, Princess Allura and Coran, they found us and I decided to bring you to their ship because they have healing pods which worked a lot faster than what I was trying to do with what I found at the base. I didn't realize it would make you panic like this. I'm sorry."

"Don't do it again," he muttered, voice cracking. His hands were clenched into fists but that didn't stop them from shaking.

"I won't."

Everything was silent for a beat.

"Is, uh, is there a bathroom close?" Matt asked, looking queasy. Allura pointed to a doorway down the hall.

"Oh!" Coran exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "I'll go get that new set of clothes, I left them with the pods." He scampered off just as Thace heard Matt getting sick. He walked over and knocked on the door.

"You okay in there?"

Matt just groaned in response.

"Is he alright?" Allura asked concerned, standing behind him.

"No."

"You seem awfully calm about that."

"This happened last time he had a nightmare too, panicking didn't help anything. He'll be fine." He leaned against the wall and slid down until he was sitting. More retching came from behind the door and he put his head in his hands. "I fucked up tremendously with this one didn't I?" he muttered.

"You did what you thought would be best."

"Yes and in doing that I just made things worse for him."

"How long have you known him?"

"Almost a week." Allura paused, unsure how long that unit of time measurement was, before going on with making her point.

"You haven't known him long enough to not make mistakes like this."

Coran came in with the clothes they found earlier, black shirt and pants with maroon along the sleeves and neckline, same as what they had found for Lance and Hunk to sleep in.

"Is something wrong?"

"Matthew isn't feeling well," Allura told him. "It will pass."

"Are you sure it's not a reaction to something?"

"It's a reaction to panic," Thace sighed.

"Well as long as it's not something he ate!"

The Galra looked up at him from the floor. It was oddly surreal, meeting him and the Princess like this, he thought. He only ever knew them from stories of his mother's childhood, and from pictures taken before the war. Sahlrin was never one to talk much about the others. It was too upsetting. Matt had quieted down again, so he figured he was fine.

"Are you done being sick in there kiddo?"

"I better be. If I throw up again I think my organs will have to just turn inside out and eject." The aliens collectively grimaced.

"Well, we have a fresh set of clothes for you to change into if you want, you should probably shower too while you're in there." The door slid open to reveal Matt, looking like the lovechild of exhaustion and death, his hair messily tied back with the scrap of cloth usually at home on his wrist. Coran handed him the clothes.

"I can't tell if standing was a mistake or not yet," the human said. He turned away and the door closed again.

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Thace told them. They heard Matt throw up again only a few seconds later.

Matt walked into the kitchen where the other adults were standing around a while later, clean and not as sick looking.

"I told you he'd follow the mice," Allura said to Thace.

"I never said he wouldn't," he replied, sipping from a juice pouch.

"Who wrote the labels on the bottles in the bathroom?" Matt asked abruptly. "Do you have humans aboard?"

"Yes, Shiro did, you know him," Coran answered. Matt looked at him in utter shock.

"He's alive?!"

"Yes, what we understand from what Thace here told us is that his escape is what lead you to be taken back to Central Command."

"I thought I had to replace him because he died! Where is he?!" Allura and Coran looked at each other, unsure what to tell him. "What happened?!"

"Haggar corrupted our wormhole when we were trying to escape Central Command,' Allura told him calmly, "We all fell out of it at different places. We don't know yet where anyone is. The castle is still to damaged to receive communications." Matt looked ready to cry.

"But once we get the castle fixed we'll find everyone without a problem," Thace said quickly. "It'll be fine." Allura was about to interject with how they had no clue what shape the paladins would be in, but he cut her a sharp glare.

"We're glad we found you, everyone was very worried," Coran stated.

"Everyone?"

"Yes, Pidge was especially. All the Paladins were brought by the Blue Lion from Earth."

Matt looked even more bewildered hearing that than he had been hearing that Shiro was alive.

"Pigeon? Katie? The fuck is she doing in space?!"

"Looking for you and your father, mostly."

"SHE JUST LEFT MOM ALONE?!" He screeched. "SHE IS _SO_ GROUNDED!"

"She's going to be very relieved to find out you're with us."

"She's gonna be under house arrest the rest of her life is what she's gonna be! Who're the others?!"

"Lance, Hunk and Keith. It's just the seven of us."

"Keith? Like little Keith? With the gloves and long hair and belt pockets for weird shit?"

"That sounds like him, yes?"

"Oh boy that's gotta be interesting."

"What do you mean?" Allura asked.

"Takashi's the closest thing Keith has to a brother since he was fostered by the Shirogane's for a while so they always teased each other at the Garrison." The Alteans looked at him in confusion.

"Takashi?" Coran asked.

"Yeah, that's his first name. Shiro's just short for his family name because Keith's a little shit."

"What do you mean?"

"Well Takashi was his superior as a graduate at the Garrison so he was supposed to call him by his last name _at least_ to show respect but Keith was like 'how can I respect this man when I've seen him nearly choke trying to see how many marshmallows would fit in his mouth' and decided to make a nickname out of his last name as a loophole so he wouldn't get in trouble. Everyone just followed suit 'cuz it was hilarious. I've known him since before that though, so I call him either. I think he prefers it when I call him his actual name," Matt chuckled.

"I hadn't realized they had that kind of history."

"Neither did I," Allura said.

"What's Keith's last name?" Thace asked.

"Gyeong," Matt replied, giving him a quizzical look.

"Why did your friend's family have to take care of him? Where was his… where were his parents?"

"They abandoned him at some hospital when he was little so we have a thing where the government puts kids like him in places with the resources to take care of them, or with families who are qualified." Thace clenched his jaw and looked at the floor. "Why?"

"It's nothing." Matt frowned at him, but dropped the subject. "You should eat something. I brought rations with me so you would have something familiar to eat," he said, pulling one of the stew boxes from a drawer in the island and sliding to Matt. Actually, he had eaten a small portion of food goo earlier and known immediately that Matt would hate the texture, so he ran out and taken all the rations out of the ship and base so there would be something he'd be willing to eat. He wasn't going to admit that in front of the Alteans though. They thought he just didn't want supplies to go to waste.

Matt took the spork out of the container and pulled the tab. "So what exactly have you all been doing with Voltron?" he asked. And so Allura and Coran began to tell of everything that had happened since they were awoken from cryosleep.

* * *

comments would be great y'all


	9. These Things You Don't Need To Know

With Matt's help fixing the damage to the castle went far quicker than it would have with Allura and Coran alone. It wasn't long until they could pick up distress signals from the black and green lions.

"What about the other three?" Thace asked, looking over Allura's shoulder at the maps she had pulled up of the two locations.

"Well the red Lion is probably too damaged to put out a signal after what Keith did-"

"Wait he's the one who did that?" Matt asked. "Of course he is never mind why did I even bother."

"I'm not sure why we wouldn't be getting a signal from the other two, but the black lion is closer, so we'll go get Shiro first." The Princess stated. Thace was going to comment that either place was nearly the same distance from where they were now, but decided against it. Soon the castle ship had left the moon's atmosphere, and the Alteans opened a wormhole to the Black Lion's location. Thace looked at Matt as they flew towards the blip. His face was a blank slate, the only give away to any tension was the white-knuckled grip he had on the side of the control panel. He had braided his bangs back to either side of his head so that they met into a small ponytail in the back, keeping them out of his eyes while they were working earlier.

"Keith is with him!" Coran exclaimed. His eyes flew to the screen and he sighed in relief. They looked worse for wear, Shiro and the Red Lion especially, but there they were. Alive. The moment the Paladins got into the Black Lion (Red, out of commision, was carried behind her,) Coran was gone to the med bay, and Matt had ran to the Black Lion's hangar at full speed.

"I never realized how fast humans were capable of going before seeing him," Allura told Thace, grinning as she recieved a a beacon from Lance and Hunk, who were on a frozen planet relatively close by.

Elsewhere in the castle Matthew jumped over a bannister, having run halfway down the stairs and deemed it close enough to the ground to just roll through the landing.

"TAKASHI!" he yelled at full airhorn-esque volume when he caught sight of them. Shiro was holding his side, leaning heavily on his little brother. The two stopped walking, looking at him in utter shock as he skid to a stop in front of them.

"M-matt?" Shiro asked, voice strained. Matt wrapped his arms around him, avoiding the injury and taking nearly all his weight off of Keith.

"I'm here babe, I'm here," Matt whispered.

" _Babe?_ " Keith asked quietly.

"Shut up."

"It's about time."

"I said Shut Up. Now come on Coran was getting a pod ready you can run ahead and help I've got him."

"You sure you want to take him by yourself?"

"I can lift more than you Gyeong, run along now." Matt's words made Shiro chuckle a bit before keith took off to help with the pod. Matt readjusted the two of them and followed.

"He's not exactly a kid anymore Matt, you know that right?"

"Ghost Boy will forever be twelve just like Katie and no one will ever convince me otherwise," Matt said stubbornly as they trudged along. Shiro snorted.

"So what's up with the glowy shit? You get stabbed with an open glow stick or something?" Matt asked, knowing full well who such a wound would have come from.

"No, Haggar."

"Figures."

"How'd they find you?"

"That is a long story that I would like not to burden you with while you're dying my friend."

"Well with me as your literal burden here I think it'd set us pretty equal."

"You're barely conscious."

"Oh well."

"I escaped with a resistance fighter while that brother of yours was fighting the sith lord. Ended up on the same planet the Princess and Coran were on, made some friends. Now we're here."

"Wait, what were you doing at Central Control?"

"Nothing you need to worry about right now."

They walked in silence a little longer, and Shiro noticed how Matt hadn't even batted an eye at his arm. If it wasn't for the fact that it was the one slung around his shoulder Shiro would have thought he just hadn't noticed. Matt was just grateful that the pants he was wearing were long, and that what little of his metal foot poked out had escaped Shiro's attention so far.

"Is your dad here too then?" Shiro asked eventually. "You… you didn't mention him."

"He wasn't taken back to Central Command."

"So they did take you somewhere? I don't… I don't remember everything, from then." Matt chuckled darkly.

"Lucky you." They were almost to the medbay.

"You didn't answer my question."

"You need to rest."

"Matt-"

"-We don't need to talk about this now Takashi, just let it go." Matt winced. His tone came out harsher than he wanted it to, but Shiro dropped the subject. "Come on, let's just get you into a pod."

Matt dragged his blanket and pillow from the room he had been given, shuffling sleepily in what castle time considered the dead of night down to where the Black Lion was held. He threw the blanket over himself like a cloak and dropped the pillow down next to one of her massive paws. Then he just flopped over onto it in defeat.

"Hey," he said, rolling over to stare up at her. "Didn't really feel like staying in my room spot they gave me. It's pretty small and sparse. Last time I fell asleep by accident I woke up in there and forgot I wasn't still in prison. Thought they had just changed my cell again or something. Maybe the Hag had gotten tired of the whole purple - grey color scheme. I think it's a bit overdone myself." He rolled over again, facing her paw, eyes half lidded and glazed over with exhaustion.

"I didn't want to sleep in the rec area either since it's so open. You can't see anything from how the couches are sunk in. Doesn't feel safe." He chuckled at himself.

"Nothing feels safe ever but you probably know what I mean. You're old and sentient, I'm sure you've got your fair share of problems if you're even listening. I kind of wanted to sleep where Shiro is, with all the cryopods and stuff but… it's eerie. And Keith's there. I don't want to intrude and stuff, and I don't really want to wake up to seeing Shi injured either if I even sleep. But this place is relatively closed off and you feel like Shiro so I hope you don't mind if I just lay my sleep deprived ass here for a bit while I talk to myself." He rolled over to his other side, now facing the wall, silent for a couple minutes.

"I've had these, like, three specific songs stuck in my head for the past three years and it's really pissing me off because they're from when I was little and two of them are just different versions of the same song and I keep mixing them together and now I can't tell which parts were supposed to go with what versions and it's slowly killing me well a lot of things are slowly killing me but that's another rambling entirely to be honest I should probably be dead by now. I totally would just die right now. But like. Shiro's here. And apparently Katie's in space. And Athridir is up somewhere with my dad. And let's be real Athri'd get real fucking pissed at me if I died on him like I'm alive purely out of obligation at this point." He rolled over to look at the ceiling again.

"I can't even sleep in order for sleeping to be any better than being awake I've gotta wait until the point where I just pass out and don't dream like I know it's not healthy but neither is waking up every hour and having a panic attack so what's really the better option here…."

Then the Black Lion moved, of her own accord, from her regular sitting position to where she was lying down, head resting between her paws.

"Oh boy look at that you are very large this close up Ma'am. I hope the Alteans didn't build you guys to scale to what lions on their planet looked like. I'm not sure how big an earth lion is on all fours it's been too long since I was last at a zoo my special interests don't include zoology but I'd guess like. A yard. A yard and a half tall. Maybe two yards being generous but also… wait nevermind two yards is way too much that's like… I'd hit the classroom ceiling with those rulers I think. Some poor ceiling tile would have just been dislodged in all its dusty, rain leaking, asbestos ridden glory. Yikes. Poor thing." He rolled over to face her paw again, forehead a few inches away from the metal plating.

"You might not even know what I'm talking about I'm just saying words to you probably just tuned me out by now. That okay. That's why I do most of the time when I lose track of what someone's saying. No point in paying attention when you've already lost the plot. Paying attention takes too much energy to waste it like that."

Just then the doors swung wide open, startling him into action. Princess Allura walked in to find the green paladin's older brother lying on the floor propped up by his elbows, half covered by a blanket with messy hair and a glowing pink leg sticking high in the air. She sighed sympathetically, still in her nightgown, mice on her shoulders as usual.

"Princess, why are you here?" Matt asked, lowering his leg in embarrassment.

"I have a connection with each of the Lions, Matthew."

"I woke you up?"

"Well, no, she did. I listened in on some of your conversation, I apologize, but I decided to come down here to see if I could… help in some way." Matt shrugged silently as she walked over. He turned so there would be room for them to both sit with their backs against the Black Lion's paw. "Why did you come to the Black Lion?" She asked after a moment of the two of them sitting in silence.

"I don't know. She just… feels like Shiro? I don't know if that even makes any sense."

"No, it's perfectly understandable. Though I didn't realize Humans were capable of feeling quintessence. That's interesting."

"Is that what that is?"

"I would assume so, it's the feeling I followed to assign each of Paladin to their lion, though I believe there may be another reason you came to her also."

"Hm?" He hummed, resting the back of his head against the paw, eyes mostly closed.

"You and Shiro are very similar people," Allura said simply with a slight smile tugging at her lips.

"Nah," he muttered, "Shiro follows the rules."

"And you don't?"

He turned his head to look at her. "Shiro follows them _more_." That made her chuckle before they lapsed back into a comfortable silence.

"Would you like me to help you fall asleep?" she asked quietly.

"You're welcome to try," he mumbled.

Allura smiled and began to sing and old Altean Lullaby that she could remember Coran singing to her when she was a little girl. Halfway through the second repeat, she felt Matt's shoulder bump into hers. By the end of the chorus, she could tell he had finally fallen asleep.

Thace and Coran found them a few hours later, woken by the mice. The two leaders were asleep against the Black Lions paw. Matt's head had fallen to her lap, and one of her hands was tangled in his hair. The men looked at each other, unsure whether to wake their kids or not. Coran, coming to the decision himself, knelt down beside Allura and shook her shoulder gently. She hummed, turning her head to look at him blearily.

"What?" she yawned.

"Not that I'm judging or anything, but I believe your bed might be a more comfortable place to sleep." She shifted, rubbing her eyes and waking Matt. He rolled over, looking up at the three of them.

"What's going on? Are we at Ice yet?"

"No. Get up we're going to my room."

"Oh. Why."

"Bed."

"Oh."

"Come on," she said, putting her arms under him and rocking forward into a standing position since he didn't sit up fast enough. Thace snorted at the look of surprise on Matt's face, slightly muted by exhaustion.

"You're… taking hm with you?" Coran asked.

"Mhm."

"...Alright."

"Do I even weigh anything to you?" Matt asked sleepily as Allura made her way back to her room.

"No."

"Wow."

"Shiro was surprised by my strength as well," she chuckled, making Matt giggle softly. She got to her room and flopped down on the bed, still holding Matt. He pressed his cheek against her shoulder.

"You're pretty," he said quietly, closing his eyes. He didn't see how Allura blushed, smiling, or how it made her marking glow ever so slightly.


	10. Not The Same People Our Old Friends Knew

Keith got to the hangar just as his friends were getting out of their lions.

"You guys are okay!"

"Keith?" Lance asked, taking off his helmet. Hunk came out from behind one of Blue's legs where he was walking to Lance from.

"Hey! You're here too!"

"Yeah, they picked Shiro and I up from where we crashed yesterday, Allura just set the castle on course to get Katie!" Keith said with a wide grin. Lance pulled him and Hunk into a brief reunion hug.

"Look at Mr. Doom and Gloom, finally smiling," the Blue Paladin teased. Keith scowled at him.

"Do you always have to ruin the moment?" Hunk cleared his throat.

"Anyway,"

"We just saved a planet!" Lance exclaimed proudly.

"Really?"

"Yeah, it was so cool there was this underwater city," Hunk started.

"And there were MERMAIDS!" Lance yelled excitedly. Hunk put a hand on his friend's shoulder to subtly remind him to use his inside voice. The two recounted their time on the (currently thawing) ice covered planet as they walked to the bridge.

"So what happened to you and Shiro?" Hunk asked when they were done. "Is he alright?" Keith grimaced.

"Well, Haggar gave him a nasty wound during the fight at Central Command, and then there were these big reptile aliens trying to kill us, but we got out fine. He's in a pod right now. He should be out by tomorrow if not sooner."

"As long as he's okay."

"Oh! I forgot to tell you, Princess Allura and Coran found Matt! He escaped with a Galra soldier from some sort of resistance, the one responsible for letting the barrier down so the castle could escape. They ended up on the same planet the castle landed on so the two are here now."

"Seriously?! Pidge is going to be happy!" Lance exclaimed.

"Wait what about their dad?" Hunk asked.

"Matt's not sure. He hasn't really… talked to me about anything, but he hasn't seen Sam in a while," Keith said sadly.

"Oh."

"I'm sure we'll find him."

"Yeah."

"Can we meet him? He seems pretty cool from what Pidge's told me," Hunk said. The walked into the bridge, where Allura, Coran and Thace were.

"Not sure. Hey Thace do you know where Matt is?" Keith asked. "This is Hunk and Lance, Yellow and Blue Paladins."

"Good to meet you," Thace said, nodding towards the two boys.

"He went to the training deck," Allura answered, "Are you two alright?"

"Doing great Princess!" Lance cheered.

"No injuries to account for?" Coran asked, hovering protectively nearby.

"Nothing that needs any attention." Keith didn't miss the worried look Hunk sent his friends way.

"Well I'm going to go introduce them to Matt," Keith called, and they left again. "Are you hurt?" he asked Lance once they were back in the hallway.

"Just a little bruised, nothing serious, I'm okay." Lance replied light heartedly. Hunk's expression, however, did not express okayness. He looked like he felt guilty. Keith didn't know what that was for, but decided that it was between the two of them. He saw Lance slip his hand into Hunk's and whisper something to him, and he was sure that he'd smooth over whatever had happened between them just fine.

They got to the training deck, and the door opened.

Keith had never known Matt to be aggressive.

He had never known Matt to be a fighter.

But fast?

Fast was something Matthew Holt had always been.

The young man was almost a blur, dodging and weaving away from the droid's blade, getting hits and parries in with his own knife quick as lightning. He flipped and rolled with the grace of a gymnast (which, Keith remembered suddenly, he had been,) before he caught sight of the three of them and nearly stumbled, almost not blocking the training droid's sword.

"End training sequence," Matthew stated. The droid shut down. Now that Matthew wasn't moving Keith and the other two could look at him. Without the shield of long sleeves and pants, or a jumpsuit, they could really _look_ at him. Matt regretted taking the tank top and shorts from Allura the moment he saw them.

Keith was horrified. He had seen Shiro's scars before he went into the pod, gashes that healed from his time as a gladiator, but Matt's were more than that. With his hair secured into a bun the scar tissue that snaked up his back past the hem of the shirt like rough tree bark was clear to see, as was everything else. The long dragging claw marks along his arms and covering his thighs, the Galran letters carved into his shoulder, the bite marks above his collarbone; the Paladins were speechless. Keith had never even noticed that Matt's leg was a prosthetic like Shiro's arm.

As warm of a brown as they were, Matt's eyes could have turned them to ice in that moment.

"Is there some sort of emergency?" he asked, in a monotone Keith had never heard from him before, breaking about thirty seconds of complete silence.

"No, I just… wanted you to meet my friends."

"We reached the ice planet?"

"Yeah."

"Hm." He turned away, walking to the wall and opening the rack of weapons, returning the dagger.

"This is Lance, he's the Blue Paladin, and Hunk, the Yellow Paladin."

"Your sister was in our group at the Garrison," Hunk told him.

"As long as she's out of there now," Matt sighed, closing the rack. "I'm going to change and then check on Shiro, tell me when we get close to her."

"Okay," Keith said, before the three quickly backed into the hallway.

"Is it just me because I'm really _not_ seeing the guy that would sneak out of the house with Pidge at midnight when the sky was clear to teach her about the constellations," Hunk admitted.

"What the hell happened to him?" Lance exclaimed, but quietly, so Matt wouldn't hear him through the walls.

"I don't know? He hasn't talked about anything, I didn't even know his leg was gone!" Keith answered, voice cracking slightly.

"How did you not notice his leg was gone?!" The door whooshed open.

"Fairly easy thing to miss when I'm wearing pants," Matt said matter-of-factly behind them, wearing the outfit he had been given the day he got out of the pod. The color drained out the boys' faces instantly, but Matt just walked past them with a small wave, not looking back.

"Guys that's a Galra ship," Hunk said, worried. They had tried to make contact with the Green Lion, but Pidge wasn't there. Allura was trying to reach out to her, but not being her Paladin the damage done from the fall made doing so more difficult.

"Yes, but they haven't taken the lion, or tried to attack us yet," Thace stated, "Both of which would have happened by now under normal circumstances."

"What are you suggesting?" Lance asked.

"Stolen vessel." Keith saw Matt's eyes widen.

"Is something wrong?" he asked Matt quietly.

"No," Matt replied in complete honesty. "Thace is there a way for you to get a signal to them?" he asked, urgency in his voice.

"I'm not so sure that that's a good idea," Allura protested, losing her concentration.

"Why do you want to send them a signal?" Hunk asked with a frown.

"It's stolen," Matt said with an unsettling grin, "And that means I might have friends aboard."

The Paladins all looked at each other in confusion.

" _The fuck does that mean?"_ Lance mouthed to Keith.

" _I don't know man!"_ Keith mouthed back with an expressive shrug.

" _You guys aren't very subtle,"_ Hunk gestured with a quick elbow movement to Coran, who was looking at the three of them with an amused smile. Lance waved and the man had to stifle a laugh before turning back to the console, shaking his head.

"Got it," Allura exclaimed, "Pidge is aboard the ship, they are friendly. The Green Lion says Pidge told her she was coming out now."

Everyone sighed with relief.

"Now what was that about you possibly having friends aboard?" Keith asked. Matt flashed a dangerous smile at him over his shoulder.

"You honestly think I'm gonna be held captive without raising hell kiddo? Shit had only _begun_ back at the camp when they took me to replace Shiro." A small green and white figure rocketed out of the side of the ship, and the Green Lion came to life, meeting Pidge halfway. The Paladins and her brother ran to the Green Lion's hangar, Matt getting there first by a long shot.

"Katherine Anne Holt you better be ready to explain yourself, young lady!" He shouted up to the lion as she climbed out, hands cupped around his mouth. She looked down at him in disbelief, and he threw his arms open. She jumped, and he caught her, spinning her around so her feet never touched the floor. The cavernous room echoed with the laughter of a tearful reunion, and soon many more as the twelve survivors from Matthew's camp were allowed onto the ship.

Shiro had fallen into the arms of someone he had never thought he would see again.

And he couldn't think of anyone in the universe he would want to be caught by more.

The team gave the young men a moment of peace alone, letting them have a reunion where one of them wasn't in any sort of life threatening condition. It was calm, and warm, and safe. Just the two of them standing pressed against each other, like nothing had ever separated them in the first place.

"I hurt you," he said, breaking the silence.

"You did it to protect me."

"But I _hurt you_ ," he croaked.

"That doesn't matter now, Takashi," Matt said, pulling away ever so slightly and cupping the other man's face in his hands. "I forgive you, and I promise: You are _never_ going to have to protect me, ever again."


End file.
